


create in me a clean heart

by tangledghosts



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Catholic Character, Established Relationship, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, it's Holy Week my dudes, pretentious lack of capitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6348892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangledghosts/pseuds/tangledghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ronan lynch believes strongly in god and in adam parrish. sometimes he struggles with reconciling the two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	create in me a clean heart

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!! this is my first official contribution to this fandom and i... sort of love it? i have a lot of feelings about ronan lynch and his sexuality and his catholicism. also, it's holy week, and i love my tiny catholic son. 
> 
> btw, i headcanon adam as latino & ronan as black. nobody is white & nothing hurts. :^)

ronan lynch cringes as the heavy mahogany doors stutter shut behind him. it’s late, quickly edging on 1AM, but it’s thursday, and it’s holy week, and so ronan is at st. agnes past midnight. in fact, he is usually at st. agnes past midnight, but he is usually not in the sanctuary past midnight. and yet.

the sanctuary is dark, but the light of several street lamps seeps in through the stained glass, illuminating the rows of pews and long altar with a sort of extraterrestrial glow. ronan tracks the translucent art, as he often does, following the narrative of a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. ronan often feels the same way. the son of a creator, born to make the world a better place. and yet.

ronan wonders if it’s blasphemous to compare himself to the literal son of god, but figures that, in the laundry list of sins he’s due to atone for, blasphemy is the least of his problems.

at the front of the church, behind the podium, the vestry has hung a replica of da vinci’s last supper, the christ figure’s hands held forward in offering, surrounded by wide-eyed disciples. a wine-stained chalice remains on the altar from the evening service and between the first row of pews stands a large chair, with a water-filled bowl at the foot. over the arm of the chair hangs a pair of damp rags. at 4AM, the clergy will return, strip the altar bare.

ronan knows declan is angry with him for missing the maundy thursday service, because he believes strongly in the importance of washing old people feet in honor of god. ronan feels guilty, but he’d been busy, driving parrish back and forth from cabeswater. ronan wonders if he’d chosen the wrong object of his undying faith tonight. he wonders if he’s imagining the disappointed look on the crucifix’s face.

there’s an unearthly tugging in ronan’s chest to approach the painting, to run his fingers over the reverent looks on the disciples’ faces, but the boundaries of the church are clear cut, keeping him rooted to his spot. ronan thinks he can imagine how the disciples felt that night, watching a god who looked like a man, awed and in love. they knew a god should never wash an ordinary man’s feet. and yet.

now that he’s here, ronan can feel the heaviness of human uncleanliness, his feet--and his soul, by extension--tainted in the dim light of the church. he’s hyperaware of the fact that he hadn’t gotten to hear the church bells before their 72 long hours of silence, and he can almost hear his mother admonishing him for not putting church first.

if he really digs in deep, ronan would be willing to admit that he had been afraid. two days ago, adam parrish had kissed him in the darkness of his apartment, thus launching ronan into a 48 hour identity crisis that has yet to cease. the fragile, tenuous thing holding him & adam together is barely ready to see the light of day, but it's more than enough to send ronan’s conscience reeling. the concept of ronan someday kissing a boy is wildly different from Ronan Kissing A Boy. he wonders if god makes the same sort of distinction between the hypothetical and reality.

and so here he is, at 12:57AM, stock still in the shadowy, high-ceilinged nave, trying to reconcile his love for jesus christ and his love for adam parrish. they are equally complicated things, in ronan’s eyes, but at least one comes with a rulebook of sorts. ronan wonders if kissing adam means he needs to go to confession, but he’s also not sure he can stomach the priest’s voice through that stupid metal gate. it’s not as if he won’t know it’s ronan speaking.

rather than dwell on the crushing weight of living in sin, ronan considers the bowl of water. a beam of red light is reflecting off the brassy lip, and it’s very nearly divine. ronan needs to have his feet washed, and less than a block away, his fragile, tenuous boy is getting ready to go to bed. he wonders what adam will think if ronan asks him to wash his feet. he supposes the only way to find out is to actually ask.

despite his late arrival at the church, ronan had followed his standard routine, changing into a button down & dark slacks before driving back to st. agnes. the march air is just beginning to warm, so ronan rolls his sleeves up to his elbows as he walks to adam’s apartment. as he climbs the stairs, he idly realizes that the time--now 1:02--indicates that good friday began over an hour ago, that the foot washing service is possibly nearing meaninglessness. he hadn’t even bothered to ask declan which good friday service they were going to, but declan will likely say the 7AM, just to spite him. ronan doesn’t mind. he figures he’ll still be at st. agnes either way.

ronan’s thoughts of declan leave him as he lands at adam’s door, a path he’s traveled so many times it’s worn deep into his bones. he raises a fist and raps the door lightly with his knuckles, just twice. he’s in no rush. 

the door swings open slowly, adam standing before him in raggedy gym shorts and long-sleeve t-shirt. his hair is matted to one side, like he’s been sleeping for a while and ronan caught him at a bad moment. adam mutters something under his breath in rapid spanish, and ronan catches “joder” and a phrase that edges on blasphemy. adam has been teaching ronan spanish profanity so they won't have to listen to the murder squash song in the car anymore.

“ronan,” adam says, accent thick and sleepy, just the right mix of local and foreign. “why’d you knock?” 

ronan smiles softly, reaching out to tug at a particularly flattened patch of adam’s hair. he leaves his hand resting against the shell of adam’s ear as he asks, “up for a late night adventure?” ronan wonders if the cleansing of the feet counts if he’s making heart eyes at a boy at the same time. he hopes so.

adam, wearing nothing but his pajamas, walks into the hall after ronan, clicking the door shut behind him. he locks it, and ronan tries not to get distracted by the way his socked feet curl against the cold tile. ronan really tries not to think about how cute it is.

adam follows ronan back to the sanctuary in silence, keeping one finger laced firmly through his belt loop. this time, ronan is sure to shut the large doors gently, then proceeds down the center aisle toward the basin. he briefly glances back at adam and is met with a quizzical look that he should have expected. and yet.

when they reach the bowl, ronan slows to a stop and turns, looking past adam at his favorite station of the cross. “i was wondering,” he chokes out, stops, breathes in deep, continues. “i was wondering if you would wash my feet.”

considering the bizarrity of the request, adam remains impressively stoic. ronan almost wants to congratulate him. “um. what?” he asks, eying ronan curiously.

“i know it’s not… traditional romance,” he grimaces around that word but barrels on. “but i missed the holy thursday service because i was carting your sorry ass to cabeswater, so think of it as payback. actually, please don’t. this is a religious ritual. i probably shouldn't be making light of it.”

adam still looks confused, and he pauses a long moment before responding. ronan is fidgeting in his shoes, filled with regrets, desperate to get away from this conversation and possibly fling himself off the nearest bridge. “i just. i don’t understand,” adam says finally. “i know the church is important to you, but i’m not religious. i’m from a different segment of your life. i don’t know if i belong in this one, too.”

quietly, because he doesn't know what else there is to do, ronan begins to recite the last verses of the maundy thursday gospel reading. “‘now i say to you, “where i am going, you cannot come.” i give you a new commandment, that you love one another. just as i have loved you, you also should love one another.’

“i know you don’t go to church. i know you don’t care about my god, and frankly, i don’t expect you to. but i don’t live a life filled with convenient little boxes to sort my sense of self into. there is just the ronan lynch box. it’s messy and jumbled and right now, it’s overflowing. so i’m trying to do some fucking spring cleaning.”

ronan thinks he might be crying now, feels his breath coming slightly shorter. but he has to tell adam. he needs adam to know. “i don’t know if god cares that i’m… that you’re here. with me. but i know that at the last supper, the man the disciples worshipped most got down on his knees and washed their fucking disgusting, dust-covered feet. so here i am. just a boy, standing in front of a fucking magician--a fucking demigod, if you really ask me--asking him to wash my goddamn feet.”

adam is staring, wide-eyed, stunned, left hand loosely clutching the sleeve of ronan’s shirt. ronan can already feel himself spiraling into self-loathing, wants to drown himself in the bottle before adam has a chance to respond. he’s about to walk away when, “ronan. ronan. did you just reference fucking _notting hill_ in a confession of your undying faith?”

and now it’s ronan’s turn to stare, wide-eyed. he nods, slowly, unsure how adam will respond, because he really hadn’t even meant to do that and it’s going to destroy his street cred if anybody finds out. adam pulls ronan in close, dragging a kiss along the hinge of his jaw. ronan prays god has better things to be watching right now than two sinful boys kissing in his high house. 

“okay,” adam says, pulling back to look ronan in the eye.

“okay?” ronan asks, cupping a hand on adam’s cheek, trying to understand what he means through touch alone.

“okay. i’ll do it. if this is important to you, i’ll do it.”

“this… this is important to me,” ronan agrees, letting out a breath he doesn't realize he’s been holding. 

ronan folds himself into the chair, pressing back into the hardwood. he passes one of the towels to adam, who takes it silently, dipping it into the water. just before he begins, adam quirks an eyebrow at ronan. “you’re sure you don’t just have a foot fetish?” he asks.

ronan cracks a small smile, so deeply in love with the boy below him, half magician and half god, willing to clean ronan’s feet just to give him a sense of his place in this world. “i’m sure,” he whispers, and adam begins to scrub the towel over his left foot.

ronan imagines this is how the disciples felt. it’s nothing like the times he’s come before, when declan or matthew or, god forbid, one of the old church ladies would wash his feet. worse, when he would wash the old ladies’ feet. not quite the spiritual experience he was looking for.

but now, ronan understands. adam is gentle, hazy and illuminated yellow by the stained glass windows. he’s focused on ronan in a way nobody ever is, and ronan imagines that if heaven exists, this is what it's like. as adam shifts to work on his other foot, ronan begins to recite lowly, “create in me a clean heart, o god, and renew a right spirit within me...”

ronan has no way of knowing whether or not his sexuality will cast him from god’s presence, and he still feels the inexplicable need to attend confession. adam parrish is an anomaly he hasn’t figured out how to account for, but he’ll get there eventually. the church will still be standing when he and adam rise slowly in the morning, adam mumbling sleepily as ronan frantically prepares for the good friday service. he'll figure it out then.

ronan lynch was not made predictably. his pieces are still difficult to fit together. he never thought he would find himself in a church past midnight, watching a boy he worships carry out a ritual to the god he worships. but then, he never thought he would have a boy to worship in the first place. and yet.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on tumblr!! tangledghosts.tumblr.com


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